


Appeasement

by shaniacbergara



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-30 13:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20773184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaniacbergara/pseuds/shaniacbergara
Summary: A prompt fill from a glorious tumblr follower of mine. Basically, what would have gone down once Aziraphale realized that his "trial" wasn't really a trial, recognizing the history of emotional abuse, and Crowley comforting him.





	Appeasement

“I asked for a rubber duck.” He said, conspiratorially to Crowley, who looked at him in that wondrous way he sometimes did. He got giddier as he continued. “I had the Archangel Michael miracle me a towel!” Crowley burst into laughter, turning away to hide his face as he often did when he smiled so freely. Aziraphale joined him, chuckling jovially. Soon, though, the curiosity weighed on him. “So, what about mine?” Crowley looked back over at him, his glasses had slipped down his nose a bit, revealing a sliver of gold.

“Your what, angel?” He asked, gazing at him as they allowed the world to continue around them. 

“My trial, my dear. How did it go?” He asked, grinning at Crowley from across the worlds-wide, too close and not wide enough all at once, park bench. Crowley pushed his glasses up, obscuring his eyes once more.

“Your-your trial.” His brow was furrowed, confused, concerned, careful, always so careful. “Nothing to talk about there, really.” He said, looking towards the trees. “Can I tempt you to a spot of lunch?” Aziraphale considered insisting, considered pressing Crowley for more information, wanting to know, desperately, how he stacked up in the eyes of Heaven. Taken for all in all, though, he didn’t want to push.

“Temptation accomplished.” He agreed, and followed Crowley to the Ritz. 

Some toasts, some glances, some not-quite confessions, later, and they found themselves back in Crowley’s flat. Aziraphale wasn’t quite sure how, his place was more comfortable, but something in him felt the comfort of being in a place that was so essentially Crowley. A cork pop, wine pouring, the clink of glasses, but Aziraphale couldn’t help himself, he had to ask again.

“I’m sorry you had to go into heaven on my account, Crowley.” He remarked, trying for a different tactic. He’d been swirling more than drinking the wine, Crowley, on the other hand, was working on his second glass.

“Do anything for you, Zira, you know that.” He replied, leaning lazily against his desk. 

“I wish you’d tell me more about my trial, though, what did they say?” He made another attempt, trying to quell the tremor that threatened to run through his torso. He felt like his heart and lungs were rattling around in his corporation’s ribcage, he was unsure of when they had become dislodged, but he hoped they’d find their way home again. 

“It’s not important.” Crowley hedged. He’d removed his glasses, and so found himself suddenly fascinated by the ornate rug beneath his feet. Aziraphale reached out, into the space between them, found himself unable to close the gap completely, and dropped his hand. It was enough to get Crowley to look at him, and the yellow eyes that surveyed him held sorrow, grief, anger. 

“It’s important to me.” He confessed. “Tell me, about the trial, tell me.” He requested, and Crowley looked at him, straight in the eyes.

“It wasn’t, there wasn’t much of a trial, angel.” He confessed, but Aziraphale only looked at him confused. “It wasn’t a trial. It was an execution.” Aziraphale stumbled back, looking at Crowley, aghast. 

“What do you mean?” He demanded. Crowley held out his hands, placatingly. Sobering up slightly as he looked at the furious expression on his angel’s face. 

“It’s just, there weren’t any questions. No judge and no jury, just Gabriel and the others, sentencing you-to-to…” He trailed off, but Aziraphale, face shifting from fury to horror, understood his meaning entirely.

“What did he say?” He demanded. 

“Don’t make me say it, Aziraphale.” Crowley requested, but Aziraphale shook his head.

“Tell me.” He insisted, and Crowley winced, looking back down.

“He said, well, he said to ‘shut your...shut your stupid mouth and die already.’” There was a small pop, and when Crowley looked back up, the angel was nowhere to be found.  
Upon his abrupt return to the bookshop, Aziraphale immediately began to pace. He couldn’t stop moving. Was it possible for his corporation to work itself into discorporation? It felt like his heart rate was moving into dangerous territories, his breath was coming in shallow gasps. He had to calm down, had to think.

This couldn’t be right. Heaven, The Almighty, would have granted him a trial, surely. Surely there is nothing irredeemable about him, he must have had his rights and wrongs measured, must have been given an opportunity to answer for his crimes. He sat, shaking, into his armchair in the back room of the shop, but jumped out of it again, remembering Sandalphon and Gabriel standing here, right here, remarking that something smelled evil. Had it been him?  
He ran his hands through his hair, tugging at his curls until his hurt. He had been so devoted, so enraptured with Heaven, with The Almighty herself, how could this have gone so wrong? Where had he gone wrong?

Eden. A voice in his head unhelpfully supplied. You went wrong in Eden. He thought of Crowley. No. No, He’d gone wrong before that. Eve, the apple, the sword. He winced.  
“Keep an eye on the humans, then. It’s the least you can do, considering that disaster in the garden.” Gabriel’s voice sounded like an echo in his head. All of those years ago. Being banished to Earth, to watch over the humans. A job no angel would have wanted, but he’d been determined to succeed at all the same. 

“No other angel would sink low enough to keep tabs on a demon. We need you to do it.” He winced, harder, tugged harder with his hands lodged in his hair. 

“Pathetic excuse for an angel.”

“Why do you consume...that...you’re an ‘angel.’” 

“Lose the gut.”

“Pathetic.”

“A joke.”

“Useless, really.”

"Ridiculous." 

He wished he could credit the words to his own brain. Six thousand years of hearing it, he couldn’t breathe. Every time Heaven had needed something, he’d been among the first to volunteer. Appeasing, that’s what he called it in his head. Ensuring that no one upstairs could be irate with him for being lazy, for not contributing, for not doing enough. Appeasing so that he could avoid the words. The glances he could stomach, the disgust in their eyes when they looked over him. He could handle it, but the words? 

And now? There was no chance for him. No opportunity for redemption. No way to make up for what he’d done. For what he was. For what Heaven had convinced him he was. He fell to his knees. Who was sobbing? He ought to go to them, to comfort them. A few more minutes and he would. He put his hands to his face. Felt the wet that had appeared there. Felt the heaving breaths that shook his sternum. He was sobbing, unable to contain it anymore. 

“Aziraphale!” The door of the bookshop, bursting open with a loud bang. It was them, it must be, coming to give him what he deserved. He cowered, there on his knees, tears streaming down his face. “Aziraphale where on Earth are you?!” Footsteps, approaching, and then.

Hands gripped Aziraphale’s arms, someone had fallen to his knees in front of him. A hand moving, gently, so gently, to untangle Aziraphale’s fist from his hair. 

“You’ll hurt yourself, angel.” A whisper, and he’d know that aura anywhere. He forced his eyes open, looked into Crowley’s face. Concern was etched into every line on his face. Aziraphale had put it there, that wasn’t right.

“I’m sorry.” He sobbed, and it felt ripped from his throat, a confession and a plea all at once. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Who to? He wondered. To Crowley, certainly, to Heaven? What was the point? He’d been sorry for thousands of years, who was going to forgive him now?

“You have nothing to be sorry for, nothing.” Crowley insisted, and reached out to him, pulling him into his lap the way he used to do with Warlock when he’d been a baby, rocking him gently. “It’s alright, it’s alright.” Aziraphale looked at him, his eyes bloodshot, haunted, wrecked. 

“I never. It was never.” 

“I know.” Crowley said, so soothingly and so honestly it felt like Aziraphale might break open all over again with it. 

“I’m sorry.” He wailed, hiding his face in Crowley’s shoulder.

“Whatever for?”

“For being like this. I’m not worthy of forgiveness. I never have been.” He confessed desperately. “All these years.”

“Enough, Aziraphale.” Aziraphale’s head snapped back, eyes meeting Crowley’s. “It was never you who was wrong. You’re not what they told you you are.” He insisted. “Aziraphale, they hurt you, but none of it is your fault, none of it is on your shoulders.”

“If I wasn’t like this, they wouldn’t have had to.” He reminded him, and it was a miracle Crowley could understand anything that was coming out of the angel’s mouth. Truth be told, Crowley was a little worried Aziraphale would hyperventilate, but he pushed the thought out of his mind, focusing on the angel’s words. 

“Sometimes, there is cruelty without reason.” He reminded him, and Aziraphale shook his head. “I’ve been watching you hurt, Aziraphale. Been watching it for years. You, the one being in the whole of creation who should never be hurt. You didn’t deserve this.”

Aziraphale’s sobs redoubled. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, how long Crowley stayed there, wrapped around him, making calming, cooing noises at him. The sun rose and they were there, in the bookshop, together. A whispered promise, upon the dawn.

“I promised you the world, Aziraphale. There is more to the world than them. You deserve more than them. You deserve the world.” 

It wouldn’t be fixed, not for a long while. A word, a gesture, a glance, could send Aziraphale reeling. But they were on their own side, and anytime Aziraphale felt like he was falling, anytime he wasn’t sure if he could fall any lower, Crowley was there, to hold him up.


End file.
